All My Children Commentary

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The Best and Worst of All My Children 2013:
We've come to the end of another year, and once again we're saying goodbye to All My Children. This week we take one last look back at the things t... Read the column now...

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In addition to the acting awards, The Dankies honor storylines as well.

Powered by Outstanding Supporting Actress winner Birkelund, "Mommy Dearest," the name assigned to the storyline featuring Arlene's return to Pine Valley, earned top honors as the Favorite Storyline of the year. The storyline finished just ahead of "Out of the Closet," the saga of Bianca's struggle to come to terms with her sexuality.

Showing the true difference of opinion among AMC viewers, Bianca's storyline was also nominated for Least Favorite Storyline. It finished fifth out of the six nominees in the field. The winner of Least Favorite Storyline was "Desert Adventures," the tale that followed Esther "kidnapping" Stuart and pretending to be his wife. Though many fans applauded the performance of Erin Cotrell (Marilyn Judd), the storyline drew ire from fans who found it as untrue to the characters involved in the storyline. Voters were also turned off by the open-ended way that the months-long plot suddenly ended.

The Most Memorable Moment battle went down to the wire. By a razor-thin margin, voters selected Liza's pretend sexual encounter and very vocal display as the top moment of the year. In a close second, Stuart's Oak Haven announcement to Adam that he was no longer his brother also proved memorable among fans.

In the Worst Moment of the Year and Most Missed Performer, voters voiced their unhappiness with the way that Sophie Malinowski's death was handled. The Worst Moment, as picked by voters, was the quickie vindication of Trevor as Sophie's killer. James Kiberd (Trevor Dillon) won as Most Missed Performer with his former on-screen wife, Robin Mattson (Janet Green Dillon) coming in a close second.

Last year, we started the tradition of offering an Editor's Choice. This year we'll follow suit with two "also mentioned's." The AMC Pages' Dan Kroll has selected Travis Montgomery's off-screen death as the Worst Writing Decision of the Year. A one-time prominent character was written off - or killed off - through a convenient not-seen stroke. There was no on-screen farewell for the character and the only reason the death appeared to have occurred was because the writers could not come up with a way to keep Bianca in Pine Valley. Perhaps it would have been better for Travis and Barbara to have marital problems that required Bianca needing to stay with Erica. Actually, anything would have been better than Travis' death.

The writers also garner a Biggest Disappointment award for their questionable use of characters. Jake Martin was brought back to Pine Valley as a wishy-washy husband who blamed his wife for turning to another man after he walked out on her. Other characters, like Opal, Becca Tyree and Tina Harding aren't used nearly enough and run the risk of being written off unnecessarily. The same was done with Scott Chandler. He went from good guy to bad guy in the blink of an eye - and then if you blinked again you missed his final appearance. The writers have addressed these problems to a certain degree, incorporating characters into multiple storylines so that they'll stay fresh and interesting. Regrettably, it may be too little too late to save some of the aforementioned characters.

This year something special will take place. The Dankies are not a once and done deal any more. With the growth of the soapcentral.com site, the "parent" site of The AMC Pages, there will now be a soap-wide final ballot in February. Each of the other nine current soaps on the air are having their own Dankies. So, there will be nine other actors named Outstanding Leading Actor and so on down the line. The winners of each of the categories in each of the other soaps' Dankies will be placed in a final ballot that will be posted on February 19th. At that time, all soapcentral.com voters will then be able to vote for the best of the best of all of the soaps currently on the air. Then, in March, the final winners will be announced.